Charita Goshay: Toledo turning that Rust Belt into a Green Belt

Charita Goshay

Sunday

Dec 28, 2008 at 12:01 AMDec 28, 2008 at 5:44 PM

If you’ve been in northern Ohio for any length of time, you knew we were in a recession long before CNN got wind of it. As cities in the Rust Belt continue to gasp for air, Toledo has found a way to add 6,000 jobs.

If you’ve been in northern Ohio for any length of time, you knew we were in a recession long before CNN got wind of it.

As cities in the Rust Belt continue to gasp for air, Toledo has found a way to add 6,000 jobs.

That isn’t a typo.

Toledo and its surrounding communities are in the pro¬cess of re-emerging as a “green belt.”

Every one of us knows a 30-something who might have done this community a world of good had they been able to stay. Toledo may have found a way to bridge the gap between those young adults who want to stay and the growing number of renewable energy and energy-efficient companies that need educated workers.

Toledo and Lucas County officials have formed a Green Jobs Partnership, a training and job-placement mechanism to meet the growing needs of green-collar start-ups.

Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner is buttonholing Gov. Ted Strickland to establish an Ohio Center for Renewable Energy and sustainable Development Center at the University of Toledo, which has engaged in solar-cell research since the 1980s.

Green sprout

One advantage Toledo has over other cities is its glass industry. Toledo is the home of Owens Corning, which gives the area a head start in the manufacturing of solar panels -- but not an insurmountable one.

According to the American Solar Energy Society, green-collar companies created 8.5 million jobs in 2006. There are estimates the industry could employ 40 million people by 2030, which sounds far off until you remember that nine years ago, we were living in mortal fear of Y2K.

In Canton, the arrival of the Hydrotech Corp. is a heartening “green” sprout. Last year, there was some talk about Canton possibly becoming a site for manufacturing turbines for wind energy. That may sound far-fetched, too, until you look at places such as Holland, and see windmills in Lake Erie, spinning alongside Browns Stadium.

Change can be difficult to en¬vision and even harder to em¬brace. In 1903, the president of the Michigan Savings Bank ad¬vised Henry Ford not to bother with the automobile industry, stating, “The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty -- a fad.”

Tree-hugging?

Northern Ohio is suffering because we failed to embrace change, even as the economy was shifting beneath us. We thought that if we just stayed behind the factory gate, the world eventually would come to its senses. For years, people in Toledo clung to the auto industry for dear life, and even as recently as this month, appeals were made to salvage still-crucial jobs at the Chrysler-Jeep plant there.

The difference is, instead of re¬arranging the deck chairs, Toledo has begun building its own life raft.

More than a few people still scoff at the notion of a green-collar economy. Because the industry sputtered in the 1970s, they see it as little more than tree-hugging. But guess what else is green?

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